20.6 sq mi, some 65,773 people, on a string of islands in the middle of the atlantic. – Bermuda

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Black Executives: A Bermudian Disparity

When we last examined the hard numbers for Black Executives in the Bermudian workforce, we noted how statistics of Black Executives were wildly skewed by the largely white non-Bermudian workforce. This led us to examine in greater depth Bermudians only in the analysis of levels of employment data so that we could get a more representative picture. This subsequently left us with the questions of how well represented blacks are in various levels of the Bermudian workforce when compared to Bermudian demographics.

So we left off by looking at the levels of employment by Race and Bermudian Status from the Commission for Unity and Racial Equality’s Annual Review of the Workforce Survey (ARWS) Report of 2006.

This gives us a good picture of present representation of blacks and whites in the workforce at various levels of employment. In order to better compare this to present Bermudian demographics, lets again review data from the ARWS Report which suggests that, in 2006, 72% of the Bermudian workforce was black, 21% was white and 7% was Mixed/Other.

Initially, just by looking at these numbers we can note how blacks are over-represented in the non-professional category and underrepresented in all others. Yet this doesn’t give a clear picture without a better understanding of the actual hard numbers in each category so lets look at the actual numbers of Bermudians for each level of the workforce.

Here’s the dame data as above, simply represented in another way so we get a clear idea of the representation in percentages.

Percentages, however, don’t tell the whole picture. The whole picture is much better represented when you start comparing the hard numbers to get an idea of how many non-professionals there are vs. the other levels of employment.

Suddenly it becomes much more clear how a 5% difference from the Bermudian demographic of 72% of blacks in the workforce can add up to such wide ranging disparities in the other categories. Indeed, in order for the various levels of employment to match Bermudian workforce demographics, 680 of the 13033 non-professionals would need to be white instead of black, 209 of the 3479 non-managerial would need to be black instead of white, as with 103 of the 940 middle managers, 285 of the 1186 senior managers and 109 of the 350 executives who would each also need to be black instead of white.

However, let’s not be racist by pretending that the mixed/other category doesn’t matter and recognize that there is a 2% under-representation in the executive category equating to some 7 whites that should be mixed/other.

So now that we’ve identified the hard numbers with regards to the racial disparities between Bermudians in the various levels of the workforce we’re now prepared to pursue our next question: what is the cause of these disparities?